The Night Driver podcast: Night on the tiles came back to haunt cop Brad Hosemans

Brad Hosemans’s raucous night at his golf club sparked a fall from grace that would ultimately have him accused of murder.

Brad Hosemans. Picture: Adam Yip

As a top detective and the deputy mayor of his home town, Brad Hosemans seemed to have it all — until a raucous night at his golf club sparked a fall from grace that would end both his political and policing careers and, ultimately, have him accused of murder.

An avid golfer who played off a single-figure handicap, Hosemans had spent Saturday, October 20, 2001, on the course at the Bathurst Golf Club before tying one on with his mates later that evening at one of the club’s popular seafood nights.

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Many were nursing hangovers the following day when the club’s female bartender went into Bathurst’s police station and made a statement accusing Hosemans of indecently assaulting her.

Hosemans always maintained his innocence and was eventually found not guilty at an ensuing trial but the fallout would leave his reputation and careers in tatters, and reverberate throughout his life for decades.

“I did not misconduct myself on the night in question. I have always been acutely aware of an accepted manner of behaviour and at no time, in any state of intoxication, has it been remotely suggested previously that I in any way indecently assaulted or assaulted any person, male or female,” he said in a sworn affidavit.

For 19 years, the once distinguished member of the Bathurst community has been dogged by a vicious campaign of rumour and innuendo claiming he was ­responsible for the unsolved disappearance of local clothing store manager Janine Vaughan.

The 31-year-old vanished after unexpectedly getting in a small red car with an unknown driver upon leaving the town’s Metro Tavern a little before 4am on Friday, December 7, 2001. Successive investigations concluded she was abducted and murdered.

While the identity of the driver and Janine’s final resting place have remained a mystery, baseless speculation spread that Hose­mans had been behind the wheel.

It remains a widely held belief in the regional city, 200km west of Sydney, even though a coronial inquest found that Hose­mans, who has always den­ied any involvement in her dis­appearance, had never even met her.

Much of the animus against him can be traced to the seafood night at the golf club seven weeks earlier and his subsequent acquittal, which fuelled accusations that there was a culture of cover-ups at the police station.

The female bartender, whose name was suppressed during the trial, had been serving Hosemans and his mates for much of the night as they grew increasingly rowdy. They had been friends — Hosemans had previously dated her sister — and, at one point, he had even pulled her onto his lap. About 11pm, she was serving drinks and Hosemans, her former boyfriend Steve, and a group of their mates were standing at the bar when one of them made an comment about her and her ex having sex at a local motel.

“I stood in between the cash register and the bar and said to Steven words similar to ‘you’ve got a big mouth’,” she told police. “As I said those words to Steven I leant across the bar and tapped him once only on the chin with the back of my fingers on my right hand. I did not hit Steven hard, it was merely a wrist motion.”

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Hosemans said he saw it differently. Far from being a playful tap on the chin, Hosemans said it was a forceful slap in the face and that he felt compelled to intervene and restrain the bartender.

She said that was an excuse for him to grope her. “Brad Hosemans then immediately leant across the bar and grabbed hold of the upper chest area of the front of my shirt with one of his hands,’’ she told police.

“I immediately crossed my arms to prevent him from touching my breasts any further. At the same time, I pulled back and Brad let go of me. Neither­ of them said anything, they were just laughing.

“I’ve known Brad for I guess a few years now and I only sort of see him when he’s either up at the golf club or out and he’s always usually quite friendly to me.

“I don’t think he meant to hurt me or scare me — but he did.”

The club’s barman, Mark Newman, who was washing glasses at the time, told police he remembered Hosemans reaching across the counter and trying to grab his colleague on the breasts.

“I asked her what they were trying to do — grab her on the tits or something,’’ he said. “She replied­: ‘They tried but they didn’t succeed.’ ”

In three interviews with police, the female bartender made a number of further allegations about Hosemans’s behaviour at the seafood night, including the claim that “I’ve turned around and Brad Hosemans actually had his penis out and had hold of it”.

Hosemans has remained adamant he did not expose his penis. He and another witness said he had actually poked his thumb through his fly and pretended it was his penis as part of a bad joke.

The female bartender went to the golf club the day after the incident and quit. After discussing the night with her sister, they went to the police station together and lodged a formal complaint against the police detective.

Magistrate Graeme Henson delivered his findings in mid-July 2002, and said he accepted the female bartender had been pushed to her limits by an air of drunken rowdiness and sexual innuendo.

In a scathing judgment, he said he believed Hosemans had tried to grope her but that he was not guilty of aggravated indecent assault because he had failed.

“I have no difficulty in accepting that, as (barman Mark) Newman said, they were trying to feel her tits,” Henson said.

He also believed Hosemans had exposed himself but, again, that did not support a guilty finding on the charge before the court.

“She says it was not a thumb and I believe her, not just because I have no doubt as to the accuracy of her observation but because of the way in which she gave her ­evidence on this issue,” he said. “It follows that I find that the defendant Hosemans has also been untruthful on this issue and as I have indicated earlier it has serious but not necessarily fatal consequences for his … credibility.”

The criticisms from a senior visitin­g magistrate were devastating. Hosemans’s critics seized on them: if the cops had managed to cover up what happened at the Bathurst Golf Club to save Hosemans, what else were they hiding?